Please mark your calendars for a Student Only meeting with Dean Smith to be held on Wednesday, June 8th from 11:30am - 1pm in UCT 1414. Dean Smith will address current issues at the school and answer questions. Lunch will be served. We encourage your participation in person, but for our distance students or for those who are unable to be on campus that day, the meeting will be webcast.

An email invitation has been sent to you. If you haven't accepted the invite, please do so. This will assist with ordering an adequate number of lunches. If you have any questions, please contact Ms. Ginny Solt: Virginia.M.Solt@uth.tmc.edu.

Student needed to transcribe data for a research project at the Center for Cognitive Informatics and Decision Making at the School of Biomedical Informatics. Job responsibilities primarily include transcription of audio-recorded communication data from a clinical setting. Time commitment is about 10 flexible hours per week. If you are interested, please contact Joanna at: Joanna.Abraham@uth.tmc.edu.

First AMIA 10x10 Course from SBMI

The School of Biomedical Informatics at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston will be offering its Healthcare Interface Design distance learning course as part of the AMIA 10x10 program. Taught by Dr. Jiajie Zhang, this AMIA-UTHealth 10x10 course will allow the student to master the fundamental principles and methods in health interface design, learn how to evaluate the usability of existing systems, and also learn how to design new systems with built-in good usability by applying related theories, principles, methodologies and techniques. This course is intended for Health IT professionals, CIO’s, CMIO’s, system developers and programmers, researchers and informaticians, physicians, nurses, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and other healthcare professionals. Registration is now open, and the first offering will begin July 11, 2011. For more information click here.

Alumna Rachel Richesson Published on JAMIA

Dr. Rachel Richesson, a 2003 graduate from the School of Biomedical Informatics recently published a paper Data Standards for Clinical Research Data Collection Forms: Current Status and Challenges on JAMIA. Case report forms (CRFs) are used for structured-data collection in clinical research studies. The paper reviews existing CRF-related standards and discusses their current limitations. To read the abstract of this paper, click here.

Dr. Rachel Richesson is an associate professor in the College of Medicine at the University of South Florida.

Dr. Sriram Iyengar Received Outstanding Teacher Award

Congratulations to Dr. Sriram Iyengar, who received this year’s John P.McGovern Outstanding Teacher Award.
The award is presented to the teacher who not only provides information, but also contributes to the student’s ability to think independently. The recipient must cultivate the students’ confidence in the roles for which they are being educated while stimulating their further quest for knowledge and continued professional development. A student committee interviewed candidates from the faculty in the School of Biomedical Informatics and selected Dr. Sriram Iyengar to receive this award.

Award for Excellence in Student Research

Congratulations to the following recipients of the Paul C. Boyle Award for Excellence in Student Research. This award is given for individuals in research in an informatics field and is recognized by the Student Governance Organization.

The move to a digital culture is raising a new set of challenges for educators. Turnitin recently conducted a study that examined which Internet sites students used in their written work and identified some interesting truths about where students turn fro research and sources:

Plagiarism is going social

15 percent of content matches come from cheat sites

Legitimate educational sites are more popular than cheat sites

Wikipedia is the most popular site for matched content

Educators with the knowledge and tools can address the growing problem

To read the white paper "Plagiarism and the Web: Myths and Realities", please click here.

NLM Professional Development Workshop

Graduate students, Postdoctoral fellows and others in the Biomedical Informatics area are welcome to the NLM Professional Development Workshop on:

‘Plotting a Career After Informatics Training: Opportunities and Options’
By: Edward H. Shortliffe, MD, PhD
Professor of Biomedical Informatics, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
President and CEO, AMIA - Informatics Professionals. Leading the Way.